For this activity you will need:
Flipchart and markersTo facilitate this activity:1 Ask participants to describe what grief is and the effect it has on the person experiencing it.
Clarify and summarise their responses using the information in the facilitator’s notes.
Many participants may have some direct experience of loss and grief, so you will need to be
sensitive to this. Remember that the main reason for this activity is to get participants to
understand that there are many ways of grieving. Also that a good therapeutic technique for
releasing grief is to share it and to talk about it. Adults are often not aware that children are
grieving, because they may not be showing it directly.2 Participants can be helped to share their experiences by completing the sentences in the box
below. Read each sentence out to participants and let them volunteer a response before
reading the next one out. Remind participants to keep their responses short, so that the activity
does not end up as a storytelling session. The main focus should remain on grief, how people
have experienced it and how they coped with it.- The most significant loss I have ever experienced was...
- I was aged...
- It was significant because...
- I felt...
- I thought...
- I wanted to know...
- I was worried that...
- My greatest fear was...
- I regretted that...
- I needed...
- I wished that...
- I was able to...
- I coped by...
- It helped when...
- It annoyed me when...
- The person who helped me was... because he or she was...
- The hardest part was...
- I knew my grief was resolved when...
- In retrospect I think that...
- My greatest lesson as a grief counsellor was...
Adapted from REPSSI training manual, Woden (1991); and Lifeline Western Cape Counsellor’s Training Manual
30 minutesIn the next activity, you will take participants through the less obvious signs and symptoms of grief
in children, especially those who may be grieving but are unable to articulate their emotions directly.(^188) Unit 2, Module 2 Guide to Mobilising and Strengthening Community-Led Care for Orphans and Vulnerable Children